Ann Rule

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Alternative Title:
Ann Rae Stackhouse

Ann Rule, (Ann Rae Stackhouse), American true-crime writer (born Oct. 22, 1931, Lowell, Mich.—died July 26, 2015, Burien, Wash.), produced more than 30 books about murders, the vast majority of them best sellers; she was praised for her meticulous research, psychological insight, and suspenseful plotting. Her first and best-known book, The Stranger Beside Me (1980), focused on the serial killer Ted Bundy. Rule was already doing research for a work on several unsolved murders in the Seattle area when Bundy was identified as the suspect, and she realized that she and Bundy were acquainted, having worked together a few years earlier at a Seattle crisis hotline centre. Rule had become fascinated with crime and criminal justice as a child when she spent time with family members who worked in law enforcement. She earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing at the University of Washington (1953) but also studied criminology, penology, and abnormal psychology and later was for about 18 months a member of Seattle’s police department. She subsequently began writing freelance magazine articles and in 1969 became a regular contributor to True Detective magazine, to which she furnished essays under various male pseudonyms. Rule’s other books include Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder (1987; TV miniseries 1989), If You Really Loved Me: A True Story of Desire and Murder (1991), Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (1995), Bitter Harvest: A Woman’s Fury, a Mother’s Sacrifice (1997); and Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer, America’s Deadliest Serial Murderer (2004). In addition, she produced a paperback series, Ann Rule’s Crime Files, about various murder cases.